Tailored Light 1: High Power Lasers for Production

The Laser world consists basically of two areas, which are necessary and in many cases also sufficient for effective innovation: The right laser for the right application. For the individual application that means the determination of optimized process parameters in terms of laser power, peak power/ intensity, focus geometry and dimension, pulse length, pulse repetition rate and wavelength to name only the six most important ones. Once these parameters are identified, the corresponding Laser has to be selected on the basis of commercial availability.

Obviously there is no such thing than "One Laser for all". The situation is rather comparable with electrical power, were depending on the demand of the application in terms of voltage, current and time corresponding power supplies need to be tailored, however, with the difference that in the case of the Laser the variety of parameters is even higher, thus the technology is more complex but on the other hand much more flexible in terms optimizing the source to the application.

As a consequence it is suggested to generate two volumes on Lasers and Applications named "Tailored Light".

Prof. Dr. Reinhart Poprawe holds a M. A. in Physics degree from the California State University in Fresno which he received in 1977. After completion of his diploma and PhD in physics (Darmstadt 1984) he joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology in Aachen where he began working as head of the department „Laser oriented process development" in 1985. From 1989 to 1/1996 he has been managing director of Thyssen Laser Technik GmbH in Aachen. Since February 1996 he is managing director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology and holds the University Chair for Laser Technology at the RWTH Aachen. Currently he is a member of the board in the AKL Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik e. V. Aachen. Prof. Poprawe has been elected to the grade of Fellow in the Society of Manufacturing Engineers in USA (SME) since 1998. Since 2001 he is a member of the board of the Laser Institute of America (LIA) and serves in many national and international boards as advisor, referee or consultant. Since 09/2005 he is Vice-Rector for Structure, Research and Junior Academic Staff. In 2006 he became Fellow of the Laser Institute of America LIA.